From Sea To Shining Sea
by jonsnowsvirginity
Summary: AU- in which a select few prestigious families seem respectable enough from a distance. They aren't. (sansan(ish), cersei/jaime, other characters)
1. The Stark at Winterfell

Sansa stark is seventeen years old. She stands five feet and seven inches tall. Her hair is auburn in soft light, and red in the sun. Her eyes are another noteworthy feature, a hue known at coctail parties and ladies tea-circles all up the East Coast as Tully Blue.

Her father was a Stark of Portland. Maine, not Oregon. His family aquired it's weath and status years before felling trees in the vast Maine woods for lumber to ship to the Boston yards in the industrial revolution, and also held considerable stock in the iron works of the nearby town of Bath. Ned Stark was a man of consierable wealth and prestige, an honest man who made an honest fortune and provided full healthcare coverage to all his employees and donated a hefty sum to St Jude's childrens hospital every year.

Ned Stark is dead. His wife, Catelyn Stark, whos maiden name was Catelyn Tully (of the Philidelphia Tully's) left their home on the coast of Maine a year and a half ago with her eldest son, Robb, now the sole heir and major shareholder of the Stark fortune, on a jet that is confirmed to have safely landed in Miami, where they had business. The Stark household servants, who are invariably long-time family friends, as are the kitchen help and the groundskeepers, expected the Lady and Robb's return in early December. Soon it became a question of wether or not to decorate the Stark mansion for Christmas as usual, when they did not return as expected. They eventually went ahead, the usual traditions being holly and strung cranberries, an eight foot tree strung with white lights and handmade ornaments of the five stark children made when they were younger, of popsicle sticks and glitter-glue, and Rudolf the red-nosed reindeers made from construction paper and a nose of shiny red felt.

On the second friday of the month, which also was heralding the first heavy snowfall of the year, Miss Mordane had the groundskeeper get them a tree. She had Bran come into the hall to oversee from his wheelchair, where he sat watching the servants erect the very large evergreen they had felled from the property that morning. Hodor helped the groundkeeper right the tree in the treestand, muttering _Hodor_ to himself as he did. Snow was melting on its dark green branches, and it smelled of the clean Maine forest. Quiet and deep, with a stillness that Bran felt in his soul, a pregnant, knowning stillness. Not like the stillness in his crippled legs, which felt like broken things and tasted like pennies.

The plump Miss Mordane bustled about, getting Rickon a stool so he could hang the decorations higher. Bran told him that he was clumping them together, but he had definite idesa about the ornament placement on this particular tree. His was the only face still bright with joy at thetrimming, Miss Mordane and the groundkeeper with his LL Bean boots and thick plaid jacket stood with worry etched onto their old faces. One of the younger kitchen girls was making sugar cookies, another Stark holiday tradition, and the smell wafted through the big empty house, warming it from the center even as the late afternoon turned blue and dark as the wind blew from the North and the white winter sun sank behind the treeline at the edge of the grounds.

Normally, they played Christmas records, Jon and Robb smelling like the stables as they threw open the door, letting a gust of freezing air blow in making the hearthfire shudder and then roar all the louder. Miss Mordane would fuss about them, shrugging them out of their jackets like they were still ten, and Arya would run by with a fistfull of cookiedough, having just avoided the swift swat of a wooden cooking spoon. Bran's mother would call after her, chiding affectionately, and Arya would double back to jump on Jon's back, piggyriding into the main hall where the tree was being trimmed. Eddark Stark, never one to miss the holiday traditions, was home from work already, seated on the couch with two Malamutes at his side, one gnawing on a rawhide, the other a pickeled pigs-ear. Sansa sat at her father's feet, humming along to the records that played as she carefully strung cranberries and popcorn from a needle onto fishing wire to hang about the mantle. The fire in the hearth made her cheeks flush with color and Ned smiled when he thought about how much his eldest daughter resembled his wife, whom he watched hang a ruby-red bulb on the tree, brushing pine needles from the front of her dress as she took a step back to examine their work.

Bran remembered the year before like it was yesterday. Now there was just Miss Mordane and the groundskeeper, no Arya and Sansa and Robb and Jon. Not even his mother or Theon. He didn't think too hard on his father. He would never see his father again. It still seemed impossible. The larger-than-life Eddard Stark, who presided over the businesses locally and far-off that Bran considered their empire, like his father was the Lord of the land and Winterfell Manor was their castle. But he was gone, and there was no fire in the hearth.  
"Liliana's making sugar cookies, Bran." Miss Mordane said kindly, as if she could read the expression on the crippled boy's face. He forced a smile.

"My favorite."


	2. The Hound of The Red Manor

Sandor Clegane was not overly fond of babysitting. He considered it a waste of talent. He was much better at smashing kneecaps and breaking noses than he was at occupying the same space as some guest (captive) and making sure she didn't get lost (escape).

Ever since Robert Baratheon had died, the entire Lannister operation had gone to the dogs. (Except that would be an insult to noble, honest creatures.) The daylight operations, as The Hound liked to call them, had been shuffled off to be managed by hired hands like it was tedious paperwork no one wanted to do, and Cersei Lannister had plunged headfirst into the more underground side of the Lannister operations.

She was not one of the airheaded wives of businessmen and politicians who have only interest in diamond necklaces and tea-parties and tennis. She was a dangerous player, and she was goddam bloodthirsty. She wanted power. She wanted what Robert had dabbled them in but never had the stomach to monopolize.

The Lannisters had their fingers in all the pies, (money laundering, arms trafficking, human trafficking, drug running... he was even pretty sure a recent rigged election in the middle east that would underhandedly effect opium production had lion hair swept under it's rug.) But he was a faithful dog, and the sublte increase in his pay following Mr. Baratheon's demise had not excaped his attention.

His service had become more heavily relied on of late, and he was almost full-time bodyguard to one of the towheaded little brats, Joffrey, whom he was more or less convinced was a sociopath. Of the stupid variety. Even without that psychiatric analysis he was definitely an inbred pinchfaced little dichead. Jaime had been around more than ever (less pretense to hide behind then when Cersei was married to Robert) and Tyrion had come wandering back into the mix, reeking of the perfumed incense and spices of some far-eastern whorehouse, with a woman in tow who he passed off as a severant, but The Hound knew a whore when he smelled one.

Yet as a reprieve from his skull-bashing and overseeing of skull-bashing, he was fucking babysitting Sansa Stark, the little Northern guest-captive who was Joffrey's fiance. Even inbred twisted upper-crust families had raised eyebrows at such a young engagement, but business was business and she had come with Ned Stark after all, before that suspicious accident that had removed him from Lannister service and stopped his snooping around. No one was fool enough to suggest that Joffrey was not a Baratheon because in that case his father's will would read quite differently, in that all his official business (and therefore power) would transfer instead from Joffrey to his brother Stannis in Seattle. And who was going to get in the way of such obvious young love?

Cersei needed her status to maintain her power and prestige, if not the money, which she gleaned from being daughter to Tywin Lannister and her shady underworld both. With all the legwork to be done, he really wondered how he managed to end up in a lounge-room with a long-legged teenager. He supposed she was invaluable to the Lannisters, though, and needed to be watched when most eyes were elsewhere, like they were tonight in light of recent events.

Sansa was a lovely girl. He had long thought her empty-headed and silly. A silly rich little socialite who liked to gossip by the pool and wear Dolce and Gabana sunglasses like a doe-eyed fucking Lolita. He was reconsidering.

The night before, there had been a bit of a scuffle. One of the servants had been proven to be an informer to the Starks, and then in turn to the police, and that was just the sort of attention Cersei Lannister detested. Sandor had been the man to finally bring him down, even when he turned out to be armed and ready to open fire on site, riddling the spotless marble and teak Northern California mansion with bulletholes. They had lost one man and gotten another shot in the leg before Sandor had taken the man down, breaking his arm in twisting the weapon away from him, snapping it like a doll made of sticks. He'd shoved a thumb through the mans eye to subdue him, that and he'd had a little too much imported Scotch on ice that evening already, and then Cersei Lannister had screamed an order to have him shot on sight.

He'd done it, execution style, his heart pounding with familiar blood-lust and wishing there were more informers so he could let loose some tension, and the shot rang out over dark empty well-kept grass, over trimmed hedges and over vineyards and orchards and echoed off the far-away hills. The man slimped to earth, dark blood pooling on the grass beneath him.

When Sandor had turned to head back to the house, he'd spotted a nightgown-clad Sansa Stark in a western window, the light behind her giving her an auburn halo. He'd stopped and stared up at her, gun warm in his hand, and she stared down at him. He had just put a bullet through the head of her brother's man. He nodded at her, and she nodded at him, turned back to her rooms and dissapeared from his view.

Now she was looking at him. He could feel her gaze, on the unburned side of his face. He wished it was the burned side, so she would be disgusted and look away. Lately he had been talking to her, cornering her in a dark hallway or on the pool deck when no one else was around, and their conversations had slowly made her be able to look at him. That was not his intended affect. He both loathed and loved her fear. Hated it because he wanted to shake her and tell her he was the only one on the goddam premises who didn't want her head on a spike, and he loved it because he knew he was grotesque, monstrous, frightening. She _should_ be afraid. And he was. He was burned, violent, armed, uniformed.

When Joffrey was using his status to bully men who otherwise would have crushed him, they all glanced behind the boy at the Hound, who stood with his hand on hisgun holster, and they were afraid. But somehow his drunken pestering had made the girl bolder. He looked to her, catching her in her staring, and she quickly looked away. So polite. Like a little bird chriping learned formailites. She is supposed to be a Wolf, a Stark, but she is a sheep among wolves._ A giselle among lions, actually. _

"See something you like, girl?" He rasped in his most threatening manor. She didn't flinch, but he could see her pink cheeks pale slightly.

"I'm sorry, Sir. I didn't mean... I was just lost in thought is all.."  
"I told you not to call me Sir. I am no Sir. Stupid girl."

She bowed her head and nodded and he felt no guilt. He didn't.

He knew he should just sit there, blankly watching Fox news, even though their braindead chriping was less like the Little Bird's and more like carrion crows arguing over a scrap of roadkill. He should've just fucking sat there.

"You saw me kill that man last night."

She was silent. He was trying to gauge her body language from his peripheral vision.

"You saw me shoot him in the head. Did you see me break his arm and put his eye out downstairs first?"

"I... I did, Sir. I mean, Mr. Clegane. I saw you take down an armed man who was opening fire in the house, with Lady Lannister and little Tommen around, and the servants, too. He could have killed us. You were very brave."

The Hound laughed humorlessly.

"Brave? A dog doesn't need to be brave to chase off rats."

"I think you were brave." She says, boldness making her voice steadier.

"He was Robb's man."

"My brother is a liar and a thief." She chirped, her learned words detatched from all emotion. She said them like a prayer. Her words might save her.

"You don't have to recite your silly songs to me. I see your eyes. When you look at them. All of them. I know that look, I've worn it myself."

She thought for a moment. "He will get what he deserves, just like my father."  
_You mean Joffrey, not Robb, don't you, Little Bird?_

He turned to look at her, both sides of his face. She didn't look away.

He was going to say something to make her blush, make her look away, make her cry, anything, but the door opened and Meryn was standing there, looking smug as usual.

"What is it?" The Hound asked, irritated.

"Master Joffrey requests your presence."  
"At midnight? The fuck does he need at goddam midnight-"

"Not you, Hound. Her." He pointed past Sandor at Sansa.

He neednt have said anything, becuase that made the bravery drain from her face better than anything he could have said.

On their way to see Joffrey, they passed the main hall, where the marble staricase spilled into a hall with high windows and oriental rugs on the cold floors. Sandor passed by the staircase, and noted one of the stone crouching lions that made up the base of the bannister had been grazed by a bullet the night before, leaving a large chunk of stone missing from his mane and part of his nose.

The house was dark, all the servants had gone to their quarters on the west side, above and below the kitchens, and the halls had an eerie glow to them as they passed through. Their footsteps echoed, and Sandor couldn't help but feel he was in a cold wet castle, so isolated up here in Northern California, miles from where the action was happening down in the southern part of the state near the border.

Joffrey was sitting in one of his rooms, a plasma TV glowing off to the side with muted Fox news faces, yapping soundlessly like muted sockpuppets. Several other men were in attendance, lounging lazily on sofas, or leaning in doorframes. Joffrey was like a pinchfaced little King holding court.

"Dog." He said, in his pubescent, strained voice. He motioned for Sandor to stand behind his chair, and felt Sansa Stark stiffen with fear as she was steered by Meryn to stand in front of him, as if on trial.

"Sansa." Joffrey said, contempt in his thin-lipped smile.

"Are you aware that your brother Robb has been creating a great deal of touble for us in Miam, my darling fiance?"

"No, my love."

"Well that doesn't surprise me. But our advanced efforts in the art of espionage have served us well." Sandor thought the little prick was taking a lot of credit for things done by his parents and uncle Tyrion. Joffrey wouldn't know a phone tap wire from a car bomb detonator.

"He and his men have taken out several important storehouses, sent anonymous tips to authorities, and is trying to worm his way into the heart of our... enterprises to rot it from the inside out."

Sansa Stark looked at her feet.

"We stopped him, of course, and now he's tucked his tail between his legs and scampered off to god knows where. Just like your father. In our business... Got his dick stuck where it doesn't belong."

_Now you're thinking of your uncle Jaime._

"He even had a spy here, working for us, right under our noses. A little Stark mouse. You know what lions do to mice?"

_Careful, enough mice have been known to tie little lions down._

"We set our dogs on them." He grinned.

"He's lucky my mother is one for clean executions. I had other things in mind for that traitor..." Joffrey stroked the arm of his chair with a pale, soft finger.

"You must've known something about it, darling."

Sansa looked up. "My love?"

He mocked her in a voice slightly higher than his own.

"_My love? _Don't play stupid with me, Sansa. You knew there was a Stark man in our midst. He knew things regular guardmen wouldn't, how else was he able to inform so well to your brother on locations in Miami he would have had no access to? Someone has access to the computers, though, someone who might be able to bypass the encryption by using my mother or my uncle Jaime's network..."

Sansa looked afraid, confused.

"My love I don't- I never-"

"Shut up. Do you know we lost twenty men in Miami over this? Got those fucking Spic cops sniffing all over that filthy hot dogshit city for more of our tracks? We'll have to create a diversion, somethign to make sure the case goes cold. At a time like this we can't afford to waste valuable resources on..." He paused, took a steady breath.

"Why am I wasting my breath? Meryn. Hit her."

He did, hard across the mouth. She didn't cry out the first time, but when he pulled a little black baton from his belt and smacked her across the back of the knees with it, she fell to the floor and cried out, tears welling in her eyes. The men sitting about the room shifted, sat up a little straighter, stopped glancing out windows or to the television. They all fixed their eyes on her.

"I think our lady is overdressed..." Joffrey was saying, standing now, excited like the others. "Unburden her."

The tearing of fabric left Sansa's back exposed, and she sobbed all the harder, trying to clutch the rags. Her hair spilled in front of her face, dusting over the white lace of her bra, the tops of her little high breasts naked. The men were fidgeting, breathing harder, like animals who smelled spilt blood.

Sandor ground his teeth. He was becoming angry, watching the innocent girl being beaten and humiliated for this little prick's entertainment. Joffrey could have had her for real, in love with him, those Tully blue eyes had looked at him with such adoration back in Portland, what seemed like ages ago when he had accompanied the Baratheons to visit Ned Stark on business in Maine. He could have taken her to bed probably, had the most beautiful woman north of Hollywood mooning over him. Instead he stripped her innocence not with kisses but with cowardice and malice. The Hound looked away, but picked his head back up when he heard the door open.

"What is the meaning of this?" The Imp strode into the room, looking outraged as Sandor felt. A flicker of fear passed over Joffrey's face.

"I'm punishing her." He whined.

"For what crimes?"

"Her fucking Stark brother running amok in Miami-"

"And what the hell does that have to do with her? Meryn, back off." The Imp waddled toward them.

"Someone cover the girl."

Sandor felt himself leaping forward, shrugging his black Lannister guard coat from his shoulders and draping it around the pale fragile shoulders of Sansa Stark. She clutched it about her, and met his eyes for a moment. The burning urges to smash and kill and tear apart that he'd been having since that scuffle with the Stark spy left him suddenly, and he felt a quieter urge, an unfamiliar one. It might have been tenderness, which he thought was awfully close to weakness. Still, he wanted to protect her. He knew a thing or two about powerlessness and injustice. He backed away and his hand went to the burned half of his face.

"Are you alright?" The dwarf asked her. She nodded, didn't meet anyone's eyes.

"Someone take her to her rooms. I'd like a word with my nephew." Tyrion spat, still looking about the room at the now sheepish men, who were avoiding his gaze and grunting and coughing into their fists awkwardly.

The Hound had been assigned to watch her for the night anyway, so it was not so out of the ordinary that he stepped forward and offered his hand, which she took. He helped her stand and walked slowly beside her as they exited Joffrey's rooms and made their way back though the dark mansion to her quarters.

She wasn't crying. He wished she was. The blank look in her eyes was worse. He didn't know how to deal with things like this. It was delicate, complicated. He prefered the complexities of combat to this.

"I'm going to get a first aid kit. For the cut on your face." He grumbled, making plans for a detour to the liquer cabinet. He came back with a tall glass of Scotch and a small blue plastic case and found Sansa sitting on the edge of a couch, still in her ripped dress, clutching his huge coat around her. He knelt in front of her, pushed the hair out of her eyes. She flinched.

"Easy now, Little Bird." He muttered, trying to make his voice be soothing. He realized she could probably smell the booze he'd drunk on his way up the stairs. She looked up at him. He raised a hand to dab antiseptic ointment on the red open welt on her cheek. Somehow, the cut did not make her less beautiful. It made her look younger, more afraid, vulnerable. Sandor felt his gut clench.

She didn't flinch, let him disinfect and clean her cut.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" He asked.

She shook her head. " I don't think so. Just bruising maybe."

"Your legs. Meryn hit them hard with that baton. Will you let me look? There's arnica cream in here that will help with that."

She looked alarmed, then something in her relaxed a little. She seemed to search his face for something and found her answer. She sat back on the couch further, lifted her legs so they rested on his knees as he crouched in front of her.

He gently pushed her dress up by her thighs, pulled down the sheer stockings over her knobby knees, her long shins, her painted toes. He squeezed a dollop of the cold cream on his large calloused fingers and spread it on the backs of her knees, a little down to her calves and a little up her thighs. Her skin was soft, and he tried to go gently as his traced over the bruising. She winced and he murmered reassurances to her, finsihed, set the cream aside and let her pull her dress back down. She was silent for a moment. He could hear his heart beating, feel the blood wooshing in his good ear.

"You won't hurt me." She said, in a tiny voice. A realization? A question? It was a blunt statement. She was telling him she trusted him.

He paused, looked at her back, shook his head.

"No Little Bird, I won't hurt you."


	3. The Lannisters of the Red Manor

"I think our phones are tapped."

"What?"

Cersei Lannister was in a red sweater that hugged her slender frame, and her hair was loose in soft golden curls, catching in the wooly fabric and splaying over her shoulders, her back. She held a half-drained glass of purple wine in the air, carelessly to the side with a bent wrist, and Jaime could see her cheeks slightly flushed from drink. They usually were these days. His own cheeks were windburnt, his jeans and polo dirty from spending the day in the vineyard and riding to check the perimter fences, a welcome reprive from running around the countryside in a seersucker suit doing his rich people duties, as he liked to call them privately.

"I said I think our _phones_ are tapped, sweet sister. Which would expain the intelligence that even that spy couldn't have known about leaking to Robb Stark. The Miami thing. Either that or our server has been compromised on the network. ...Or both. Probably both."

Cersei watched her brother with knitted eyebrows, considering his words as he stepped around the redwood table that separated them. He took the wineglass from her hand, set it behind them, slipped is arms around his sisters waist.

"Since when did the Starks play the game our way?"

"Dirty, you mean?" Jaime smiled and pressed his face to her hair. Cinnamon and cloves. Something heavy and rich, and so _Cersei_. He breathed in the smell of her, nuzzled the shell of her ear with his nose.

"Ned Stark would sooner have sent a goddam_ letter of inquiry _about "illicit operations" than bug our mansion and use espionage to take us down."

"Ned Stark. Yes. This is not Ned Stark. Your..._our_ son had him shot in the forehead, remember? This is Robb Stark, and apprently he is willing to play dirty."

"We needed that Miami shipment. That was not just a cargo truck worth of cocaine, that was an investment with a very powerful ally..." She reminded him.

"If you're worried about The Tyrells..."

The Tyrells were powerful friends, and miserable enemies. Cersei often saw their family crest of a rose and thought only of the thorns hiding underneath those petals..._ A thorn in my side is all they've been recently.. But Loras proves his worth from time to time. Best not think of that now though, not with Jaime so close he can almost read my thoughts_...

"I'm not worried about the Tyrells." She snapped, and Jaime kissed her neck to take the anger out of her tone. He felt his twin pause, then shudder almost imperceptibly. Goosebumps raised on her skin, and this close he could see her nipples stifen through the thin red fabric of her sweater. He cupper her cheek with one hand, let his other wander over her collarbone, kissed her hot mouth and tasted wine.

"Jaime..." She breathed.

"We will make amends with the Tyrells. They came out clean and so did we, they're not going to break an alliance over a botched Miami job. There's the deal next week with the Pashtos, you remember, the guns wrapped in the rugs? That's going to go off without a hitch. And there's..." He paused... The girls from the Ukraine and Thailand, he was going to say, but he hated the fact that the Lannister enterprises meddled in human trafficking. Drugs and guns he could reconcile, but he'd been in the brothels. He'd seen the eyes of the girls. Cersei didn't seem to lose any sleep over it.  
"The little whores, yes." She muttered absently, kissing the corner of his mouth.

"Yes, sweet sister. The little whores. It will be lucritive and stroke our alliances. We have to be more careful, though. I've hired someone we can trust to find out if I'm right about the tapping. We need to up security. Father will need to as well, if we can convince him it isnt the nineteen sixties anymore. Enemies come in on the radio waves..." He pressed himself against her, feeling her desire build in tune with his. It could never be the same with anyone else... Never be right. Not like this. _Cersei. _He picked her up under her buttocks, hoisted her to the nearby leather couch and rested her on the arm of it, eased in between her legs.

"You and I will run this entire thing, Jaime." She whispered as he kissed her neck, her shoulders, tearing the red sweater off her and taking her full breast into his hand, his mouth.

"Mmmph." He murmered agreement as he teased his tongue over her soft golden skin.

"Everyone who isn't us is the enemy. And we'll bury them all." Her laugh turned into a gasp of pleasure as Jaime ran a hand between her legs. As he pulled off her skirt and leggings and positioned himself between his sister's legs, he questioned if this room was bugged, and absently wondered if there was only audio- or video as well.


	4. Sansa Stark of Nowhere

Sansa Stark was seventeen years old. She seemed both much older and much younger at that moment, though, wise beyond her years and yet somehow fragile and childlike. Maybe it was her vulnerability, her terrible circumstances that made her seem this way to him. Her hair was auburn in soft light, and red in the sun. Right then it could be black, though, as she slept in the dark with her head on the passenger door of the Lannister car Sandor stole. Her eyes are what is known widely in the prominent families as Tully Blue, but then they were shut, and one was likely to stay that way until the swelling went down.

They passed under streetlamps, high orange lights, about one every fifteen seconds, but they thinned out as the interstate goes farther north, when the rolling green of Northern California passes into the rockier roads of coastal Oregon.

Sandor didn't know for sure the vehicle wasn't being tracked already, and he was only counting on the chaos and madness that happened hours before at the Red House to keep any pursuers at bay a while longer. Once he crossed state lines, he would find another vehicle for them. He had stolen a dozen cars in his day, and the thought did not phase him in the least. He was good at it. He knew what he was doing. He knew how to smuggle people, how to throw off pursuers how to cover his tracks and not leave a paper trail. He knew where he could go so that he will not be found for a day or two, until he can smooth out a plan to get his cargo three thousand miles away, back to Maine and hopefully a hefty sum of money.

What he didn't know is what to say to the sleeping girl when she wakes.

He turned the radio on, fumbled with the dial, turned it back off. He discarded his cellphone, his pager, threw the GPS onto the highway already. He extracted as much cash as the ATM would let him at a gas station off the interstate headed south before looping back and heading north. That would be their last traceable record of him. He also bought a pack of Marlboros, and cracked a window to smoke one. The night was clear, cold. The air kissed the good side of his face and he accelerated to eighty on the empty highway.

He drove the rest of the night, and stopped in a little town to steal a new car. Sansa was awake but he said nothing, and she said nothing, and he motioned for her to wait while he got out, popped the lock to an old volkswagen, and came back to move their bags. He took the plates from the car, scratched the vin number from several places (he couldn't remove the one on the engine, regrettably, but it would slow them down when the owners of the pizzeria they were parked at found the vehicle never left the parking lot and had it towed), and grabbed his and Sansa's bag, stuffed it in the back. He filled the gas tank with cash since he could no longer use his credit card, and they were headed north again as the sun was rising on their right.

"Put your hood up next time we stop someplace, girl." He growled. She looked at him.

"You don't fit a whole lot pf descriptions except Sansa Stark if anyone comes through after us asking, for starters," He explained, lighting another cigarette.  
"And your bruises are bound to make people look twice at you. They'll think I did it."

She raised a shaking hand to her face, glanced in the sideview mirror. Her non-swollen eye filled with tears. A perfect lady she looked now, she thought, with her sweatshirt and unkempt hair and bruised face.

"Don't cry, girl. Be grateful. You got out of that clusterfuck alive, and _your _wounds will heal." The way he said it made her look at his scars, and she understood, sheepish.

The night previous, he'd been awoken by gunshots. He'd sprung from his bed, in his boots and pulling his own weapon in a matter of seconds. By the time he was down the hall, people were shouting , running. More gunfire, and then it happened. The explosion. Someone stuffed a gas-rag into every vehicle gas tank in the front and lit a match.

He'd fought at first, there were men in dark clothing like his own, it took a moment to distinguish who was who in the chaos, but the fire spread to the house... he could feel the heat of it on his face. He didn't see Jaime or Cersei or Joffrey, but other guards like himself fighting and shooting.

Servant girls were running, screaming, coughing as the smoke started to curl around the burning house. The men were headed up the stairs, kicking in doors. Probably looking for the Lannisters or their children.

Sansa, he had thought suddenly. He ran away from the fire, throwing two intruders off the side of one marble staircase as he took the steps three at a time. He'd kicked in her door, found her perched at the window, trying to approximate the drop. It wouldn't have been wise, it had to be twenty feet to a stone pavilion below.

"Throw your valuables into a bag, you have twenty seconds." He had roared at her, and she obeyed, crying, shoving things into a backpack and rummaging for documents in a drawer. He grabbed her arm and as they were leaving her room, ran into two if the intruders. The entire house was aglow with the fire now, and he could still hear shouts and breaking glass and shrieking on the main floor. He shot one man in the chest and used his body to shove the other off the balcony before he could get off a round.

He reeleed and grabbed Sansa by her wrist, dragging her to the stairs and to the main floor. He had to get away from the fire... Just away from the flames and everything else would be fine...

They exited through the back door, the cool night air on the west side of the house, still unburnt, coming as a welcome reprieve He saw several Lannister servants with the same idea, running into the vineyards from the west side. Instead he pulled the Stark girl along the side of the house, heading for the garages. He had a key on his belt for one of the company cars, if he was doing an errand or business or something awful like playing chauffeur to Joffrey.

They made it to the garage but were met by three men, one of which The Hound snapped his neck before the others began to react, and he had to combat them more messily. In the fight, one grabbed a fleeing Sansa, struck her, and threw her to thr ground. Sandor felt rage build inside his chest. Rage at the fire, at the man, he didn't know, but it gave him strength to overpower the first man and use his head to knock the second unconscious.

"Little Bird." He said, pulling her to her feet. She was losing consciousness, so he threw her over his shoulder and made his way to the car, layed her down on her side in the back with the bags next to her, and ducked low as he peeled out of the Lannister grounds, shots ringing off the body of the vehicle more than once.

He got them a hotel in Washington State. He was exhausted from driving twelve hours after that miserable fight, and he could see she was as well. He payed cash and used a false name, chose a seedy small town hotel over a chain, which would require a photo ID and credit card. the modern world was conducive to paper trails. This was advantageous if you were doing the finding, but not if you were the one who didn't want to be found.

He pulled the car to their room, got both their bags, opened the door for Sansa. She stepped in and waited for him to turn on the light. She stood still, as if awaiting instruction. There were two double beds, a table and lamp between then, a pad of paper, tissues, a phone book and pizza delivery pamphlet. A small TV with rabbitears sat opposite the beds and one dirty window looked toward the highway. Sandor locked the door behind them, set their bags down, closed the blinds. Sansa took it all in but didn't seem to want to move.

"Girl." The Hound said gruffly. She looked at him, face a bruised mess, hair tangled and lank, clothes smelling of fire.

"Clean yourself up and get in bed, why don't you."

She nodded, moved stiffly to retrieve her bag, movied into the bathroom. He heard the lock on the door click and the shower turn on. He hated leaving her even for a moment. If he was going to do fucking anything it was keep her safe and deliver her to her family for a nice little ransom. He knew the Lannisters would have his head for taking her, but he didn't much care. Fuck the Lannisters. The Red House had been _burning. _

He grabbed ice, ibuprofen, bottled water. When he returned she was still in the shower, and he ordered a pizza over the phone, turned on the TV for white noise. He sat back on the scratchy coverlet, rested his head against the headboard. He was weary.

Sansa emerged from the shower feeling a little bit less like death. She'd felt numb for hours, having to turn the thoughts in her head off. She kept seeing the burning house, the men who had attacked her, the way The Hound had fought them off, smashing them like dolls, swatting them away like blackflies that used to plague her badminton games every summer at camp.

She tried to sleep in the car but dreamed of Joffrey, on fire, reaching for her, screaming her name, rage in his eyes as his skin melted from his bones. She dreamed she was in a car with Meryn instead of Sandor, and he turned to her and laughed while she screamed, tried to get out but some invisible pressure kept her inside the car with him.

The shower woke her up, helped lift the nightmare-veil from her eyes. She fetl clean, too and toweled her hair off in one of the white hotel towels, wrapped it up into a big beehive and dressed in a white cotton v-neck and silk indian pajama bottoms. She turned the nob carefully, as if expecting a Lannister raid in the hotel room, but just saw Sandor Clegane sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the television like they weren't on the run from one of the most powerful families in the United States. She supposed he was used to danger, though. He lived his life by it. What was it he had told her once when she first had come to the Red House? _The world is built by killers, so you'd better get used to looking at them. _

She still did not know entirely what to expect from The Hound. She wanted to trust him, like that moment when he had said he wouldn't hurt her, when he was cleaning her wounds... but she knew people lied all the time.

She wanted to trust the look in his eyes, the one that wasn't rage and hate, the one she had glimpsed when he looked at her. She didn't know who in the world to trust, though. Everyone she thought she could had turned out to be a lie, or else a bitter disappointment She was at his mercy though. He had rescued her, but for what? She had been too afraid to ask in the car. Did he bring her here to rape her? To kill her? No, he would have killed her outright. Why would he have gone through the trouble to save her? Maybe he did want her for himself, and it was the only reason he had been so interested in her before.

What did trained killers, hard cruel men like The Hound who made their name on their viciousness want with a stupid little girl like her except to rape her? She felt afraid, suddenly, and sure she had been wrong about him. She almost bolted out the door, barefoot and penniless. But where would she go? She was in some town in Washington state with no one to help her. Her head hurt suddenly, and she wanted to lie down.

She sat on her bed in defeat, crossing her legs.

Her situation hit her full force. God, she was on the run with the Hound. What would her etiquette teacher think of that? She imagined her purse lipped teacher, with her tight bun and her impeccable British accent. What would she say? She imagined her tutting, running a finger along the tabletop to inspect for dust and grimacing._ Keep your chin up, Sansa, straighten that back. Do you want to look like a ragamuffin? Well-born girls always keep their head intact and their wits about them. _

_What about when they're on the run with their fiance's bodyguard and he is more than likely going to force her to do something unspeakable? _She straightened her spine, folded her legs beneath her and tried to keep her chin up and keep her lips from quivering. She felt her eyes fill anyway, against her will.

Would he make her come into his bed or would he just force himself on her over here? She was a virgin. Although she felt some relief at getting away from Joffrey, she knew if he raped her he would kill her. She supposed that would be better, in a way. He was looking at her, and she wished she wasn't crying. She must look so pathetic, so childish. It would anger him, she knew. He hated her weakness.

"Little Bird." He said, and she flinched.

"Here." He said, reaching to the nightstand and pushing a few items towards her. "Take some medecine and drink some water. It will make you feel better."

His tone sounded gentle, and the ibuprofen was in a sealed package. There was no way he could be slipping her anything else. She checked it for perforations before she took it. She caught her reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall and flinched.

A knock on the door made them both jump. Sandor made a motion with his hand for her to stay, and she did, trembling. He looked into the peephole and grunted, opened the door two inches till the chain-lock caught and shoved a crisp ten dollar bill through.

"Keep it. Leave it there on the ground." He growled, and the delivery boy left. Only when his footsteps died off did Sandor open the door and retrieve the pizza box.

Sansa felt her stomach growl, even at the greasy pizza she normally would have turned her nose up at.

"Eat." He said, setting it between them so they could grab. She folded hers, trying to keep the grease from spilling into her blue indian pajamas, and ate the cheesy, hot food with as much relish as a trained lady dared, licking her lips when she was sure he wasn't looking at her. If he was going to hurt her, he didn't do it then. He just finished his food and flicked the channels. Despite herself, Sansa dozed off, overcome by her exhaustion.

_She was struggling, trying to get away, but iron hands held her down. Joffrey was laughing, ordering the men to strip her bare in front of a mass of people, beat her with poolsticks and riding crops. Then Meryn approached her, grinning, grabbing his manhood through his pants. He meant to take her... in front of everyone. She was whimpering and thrashing, wanting to scream but too afriad..._

She woke herself up screaming.

A hand clamped over her mouth and she panicked, thrashing like a cornered animal. Only when the light came on and she saw The Hound above her and the hotel room about her did the nightmare dissipate, retreating back to her sleep world like smoke.

She stopped struggling and he released her.

"It was a nightmare, girl." He growled grumpily. "You'll wake half the town doing that."

She felt tears sliding down her cheeks to the pillow. "I'm sorry." She tried to say, and found her voice hoarse, her throat dry. Sandor handed her some water, and she drank shakily. He turned the light out without another word and crawled back into his bed.

"Mr. Clegane?"

"Mmph."

"Why did you take me?"

"To save your life."

"Those weren't my brothers men, then?"

"No, Little Bird. Those were Stannis men, most likely."

She thought about that a moment. Stannis wanted Joffrey's claim to the Baratheon fortune. Next of kin...

"I dreamed he was here. Meryn. Joffrey too. "

The Hound was silent. She suddenly didn't believe her wild theories anymore. She wanted to trust her instinct about him. She knew he wouldn't hurt her. She knew it in her heart of hearts. It was cold, and she began to cry anew. The nightmare felt like it was waiting for her on the brink of sleep, where she would fall back into it, relive it again.

"It's alright, girl. No one's going to hurt you tonight."

It was the best promise he could make, but that's all she really wanted. The assurance of tonight. She wanted to be held, but was too afraid of him to go to him. She imagined he would be solid and warm, that his arms would feel heavy and his fingers calloused. She imagined him telling calling her Little Bird in her ear, with his scratchy deep voice and the whiskers of his beard on her smooth skin. She blushed in the dark, pushed her thoughts away and shivered without warm arms around her.

She tossed and turned until the room turned grey with dawn and Sandor got up, cuing her to get up and start to prepare to leave.

He was in the shower, and she dressed quickly, brushing her hair and braiding it back so she could throw up her hood and not be recognizable as anyone, least of all Sansa Stark.


End file.
